Yesterday when I was searching for a header photo for the Sabbath Rest post, I came across this photo (above) from our visit to Death Valley National Park in late March of 2010. Seemed like a good chance to take a stroll down memory lane!

Revisiting the Bucket List – 3/31/2010

Death Valley National Park
It wasn’t even on my “bucket list” of things I needed to do while on the West Coast. So when Gary said we were going there before we headed to Arizona, I wondered what there was to do there. I mean, with a name like Death Valley – sure didn’t seem like a very interesting place to me. Well, four jam packed days (and 700+ pictures) later, let me tell you, there is LOTS to see and do in Death Valley.
Did you know

• The highest temperature recorded in the USA was in Death Valley (134 degrees)
• The same year the highest temperature was recorded (1913), the lowest temperature (for Death Valley) was also recorded – 15 degrees above zero.
• Death Valley National Park is the largest National Park in the lower 48 – 3 million acres of wilderness.
• The lowest elevation in the Western Hemisphere (282 ft. below sea level) is found at Badwater in Death Valley.
• The highest point in the lower 48 (Mt. Whitney at 14,491 ft) is just 100 miles from that lowest point.

Enough of statistics! I was expecting to see desert and desert-y things. What I wasn’t expecting were mountains of unbelievable colors, volcanic craters, a castle, moving rocks, and lakes of salt. I’ve pared down my pictures and tried to be at least a little organized, so here we go – the highlights of Death Valley National Park, Conrad-style!

Titus Canyon
Now there are two ways to see Titus Canyon. One is to drive to the canyon head (about 1/2 mile) and then hike up the extraordinary canyon. OR, you can drive all the way out of the park and approach it from the other side, driving along a “high clearance, 4×4 vehicle recommended” road for about 25 miles. Can you guess which one we chose?

The road was one way (which I LOVED) and never really got too “technical”, but we did encounter something that we had rarely come across before –

TRAFFIC!
And while we tried to stay back (mostly so we wouldn’t be choking on their dust),

We did finally end up in a traffic JAM!

Looking back while we waited for folks to start moving again….

We eventually got around the crowd (they all stopped at various POI’s along the way), and made our way into the canyon –

and after an amazing drive through the canyon,

we made it out the other side! It was a great drive – and if you’d like to see a couple more pictures of the drive and canyon, Here you go! –
Since the drive took a little longer than we expected (you know, the traffic!), we decided to take in some of the areas that were close to our campsite.
Like the Harmony Borax Works –


And the Salt Creek Interpretive Trail –




The Salt Creek is home to the Devil’s Hole pupfish – an endangered species found only (so I’m told) here in the Death Valley region.

Our final stop for the day was Mosaic Canyon – Amazing!



A couple more Mosaic Canyon pictures are HERE

And that was Day One. I think I’ll split this up into a couple of posts, so you don’t get into picture overload (like that would ever happen on one of MY posts!) 🙂
Take a break – I’m going to make us some dinner!

 

I hope you enjoyed this little walk down memory lane – I know I did!